Saudi Arabia said to cut crude supplies to Asian markets in June

Saudi Arabia is likely to lower its oil supplies to Asia by about 7 million barrels in June, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed source.

State-owned Saudi Aramco is expected to cut exports by 1 million barrels each to Southeast Asia, China and South Korea, a source with knowledge of June nominations told the news agency.

Supplies to India will be reduced by a little more than 3 million barrels, and Japan will see a cut of nearly 1 million barrels, the source said.

In total, the cuts are likely to be equivalent to about 233,000 to 234,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Saudi Arabia has been reducing oil exports, along with cutting production as part of the OPEC deal. While Aramco lowered exports to Europe and the US following the output deal, it has tried to maintain supply to Asian consumers.

The reduction in Asian supplies comes as the Kingdom’s domestic demand for power is expected to rise during the coming summer months.

A separate industry source, however, said that the action in June does not mean that Saudi Arabia would undertake further cuts to Asia in the rest of 2017.

Under to the output pact, OPEC and major non-member exporters, including Russia, had agreed to slash production by about 1.8 million bpd from January 1 until June 30.

Saudi Arabia took the biggest cut in its production, with the country’s current output holding slightly below 10 million bpd.